State Marijuana Monopoly under AG Holder’s Eight Criteria

Continuing to think that the best way to legalize marijuana is via state monopoly, I’m thinking that AG Holder’s eight criteria might open the door.

Only this criterion — “growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant public safety and environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands” — might create some problem for state stores by far-fetched analogy.

There are at least three problems for state monopoly under this analysis:

1. A monopoly state would take the risk that a new Administration in 2017 would change everything.

2. As Federalism expert Rob Mikos points out, Federal agencies other than the Justice Department could cause trouble for anyone, state or private, dealing in still-federally-illegal marijuana.

3. It may be too late for monopoly as private enterprise has seized the day in people’s minds.